The Avalanche played a strong first period, got a bit undisciplined in the second but responded in the third to beat the L.A. Kings 5-2 for the season opener.
Even though the Colorado Avalanche beat the Los Angeles Kings in the season opener, the team had some missteps. But no team comes right out of the gate in perfect form.
"I think the team did some good things tonight but I think we got room to improve," Bowen Byram said after the 5-2 win at Crypto.com Arena Wednesday night. "We'll regroup and get ready for the next one."
The top line combined for eight points — half of those coming from Mikko Rantanen. The team played a strong first period but lagged somewhat in the second, which cost them twice.
"I felt like every time we were on the ice, regardless of who it was, we were directing the play for the most part," Cale Makar said. "I think we lost it a little bit in the second there, but fighting our team to kind of get it back, I felt like that maybe wasn't with us early on last year. I think that's just things like culture that are just being instilled in guys. I like the way a lot of guys played."
It was a hard-hitting game with the Avalanche getting two more penalties than the Kings. And NHL Player Safety announced on Thursday it issued a $5,000 fine to Phillip Danault for a slash on Ross Colton that wasn't called during the game.
"Resilient is probably the right word. We had a good chat on the second intermission to stay on the gas," Rantanen said after the game. "I think third might have been one of our best periods tonight. Just solid both ways — we didn't give up a lot. We defended, lots of blocks ... and Georgie was excellent. So it was the mentality of the team and that's what we gotta keep working on."
Colorado was up 3-1 with less than 10 seconds left on the clock and some miscommunication and misplays resulted in the Kings getting one in the back of the net.
"Probably the wrong decision, I think," head coach Jared Bednar said about the play. "It's one mistake. It shouldn't define us — was our message in between the periods and we didn't let it do that."
Overall, the team played hungry and with intensity, as to be expected for the season opener. But it was also a good showing of the chemistry the team has already built over training camp and preseason.
"I thought everyone was here to compete hard. There was pretty good tempo to the game ... You knew the pressure was gonna be on in the third, but I thought we responded in the third," Bednar said. "Got much more disciplined with the puck, put more pucks deep, came up with more pucks on the forecheck and were able to create some nice scoring chances. ... All around good game from our group to start it off."
As it was the first game of the season, there were some expectations already set in place.
"We want to make sure that we set the tempo high at the beginning of the season," Makar said. "A lot of guys on this team that can produce, so hopefully we won't have any issues with that. Everybody was looking good tonight."
Makar said he liked Johansen in the middle on the power play but that unit still needs to be tuned up to create more scoring chances.
The Avalanche face off against the San Jose Sharks on Saturday at 8 p.m. MT.